The World Cup final pits two teams bidding for a fourth title against each other, the top two teams in the rankings but also the two teams who best play to their super strengths. South Africa’s is the way they use their bench, New Zealand’s is the speed at which they move the ball and I’ve been so impressed how both sides have embraced that during the tournament.
I look at New Zealand, who suffered a record defeat at Twickenham before coming to the World Cup and then lost their opening match to France. What did they learn from those defeats? When you get a loss like that at Twickenham, you can let it define you and you can feel sorry for yourself. Or you can learn from it, it can give you hyperfocus about who you are. How can we best represent ourselves, what does that look like? Because it wasn’t a true reflection of them, whereas the victory over Ireland a few weeks later was. It helps you create this veneer of protection. It blocks out noise and strengthens you as a team if you harness it in the right way.
South Africa, meanwhile, have the largest player pool on the planet and as a result they have the greatest depth in the world game. When it comes to their replacements, there is no drop-off; in fact you could argue that there is an increase in terms of physicality, intensity and tactical awareness when they bring their subs on.
There is not another side who can compete with that. Their starters set their foundation and the replacements come on to make impacts. It’s clear from their team selection, with seven forwards on the bench, that they will target New Zealand at the set piece and if you’re going to do that it’s imperative to have a goalkicker with at least 80% accuracy. That’s why selecting Handré Pollard from the start is the right call.
They will look to squeeze and suffocate New Zealand. If there are going to be 10 or 15 scrums then South Africa are going to scrummage hard and long. Good luck to the All Blacks in being able to withstand that and then go through 20 phases to score a try. It’s extremely hard to do both those things and that is going to be the challenge facing the All Blacks.
The common denominator in the two matches these sides have played this year is that the team who came out of the blocks the fastest, put their gameplan into practice first, ran out comfortable winners. In Auckland, the All Blacks blew South Africa away with their physical intensity and speed of ball; at Twickenham, New Zealand couldn’t get out of their own 22 for the first quarter.
The importance of the opening 20 minutes is huge. The confidence it gives to players and the pictures to the referees, it’s so important. Normally there is a lot of sparring in the first 20 minutes but I don’t think these two teams do it. It’s the fight and the race to implement their gameplan and because these team’s identities are so different, it’s a wonderful juxtaposition.
When we live in the Six Nations bubble we can consider that everyone’s biggest game is against England, but when you look beyond that dynamic and focus back on the southern hemisphere, this is huge for so many reasons. Not least because both have three World Cup titles each. In both countries, rugby is the No 1 sport, it’s the thing they care about more than anything else. That is as good a reason to celebrate this final as any.
Sad times
There are aspects of the Tom Curry-Bongi Mbonambi situation which have really disappointed me. The first thing to say is that if the tables were turned and Tom Curry was black, the outcry would be so much bigger. I also find the whole thing a bit triggering because what we are seeing is someone speaking up in good faith and getting abused for it. This is not about me being judge and jury with regards to Mbonambi, it’s about the awful abuse that Curry and his family have come in for.
It was Curry speaking about something which he heard. He can only report on what he’s heard. The unacceptable part is the abuse that Curry has got. How, why and on what planet does he deserve that? To target him and his family is awful. This Rugby World Cup has been brilliant and hit a fever pitch at times but what society do we live in where people are afraid to speak up? If I speak up on something, I’m now exposing my family to a tsunami of abuse. We cannot operate or live in a world when that is the outcome where a potential victim gets a pile-on.
It shouldn’t be considered brave to speak up but it is because of the pile-on. It should be the accepted thing to do. We want our sport to be inclusive but the only way you can do that is allow people to be themselves and speak up when they need to.
